What will you become?

This is the most asked question. Especially in the teenage and college years. Everyone wants to know what will you become and this is also the question the most amount thinking is done by a student.

You would reply with something like engineer, teacher, doctor, pilot, accountant or something of this kind. But I feel this question is overrated. People give more than required importance to what will you become. Most of these people are not aware of the speed at which Artificial Intelligence is developing. In a few years it will be able to perform in almost all our dream professions while delivering 10x efficiency, not taking a weekend off and not taking salary. A computer feeds on electricity.

Your competetors are not people sitting in your classroom but a computer. Computer can learn and iterate faster than humans. So what you are working day in and day out to become can be taken away from you by a trained computer.

Feels bad, right? Believe me it would feel worse when your inbox is greeted with a laying off letter saying “The computer you work on is now capable to work on itself and doesn’t need you”.

What do you do now? How do you make sure such a thing never happens to you?

By focusing on the skills that AI won’t take over anytime soon. Then try and squire those skills. One such skill that I can think off is public speaking. I don’t think we a computer would replace Sandeep Maheshwari anytime soon.

Try and look for these kind of skills and acquire them to make your future secure.

Start focusing more “how you will become?” than “what you will become?”

Your values, interpersonal relations, skillset, flexibility will matter more than any other thing in this age of rapid change.

Don’t just run after 1 profession because that might well be taken up by AI.

Make yourself capable of more than a single profession by acquiring a varied skillset.

It was never sensible to put all your eggs in 1 basket.

-ChoubeySahab

Prioritising priorities (micro blog)

Firstly, what is a priority? It is that thing which deserves your energy before everything else. Like for many their studies are priority, or work is priority, or family is priority. Priority is what you would choose over everything else.

Knowing your priority is important. Say for example, you have an examination tomorrow but there is India vs Pakistan today. What will you choose? Studying ofcourse because your exam is your priority.

But the biggest difficulty is prioritising priorities. If you are a die hard cricket fan then India vs Pakistan is irresistible. Even though you know that your priority should be to study but still you watch the match and then compromise on your sleep to study.

The point I’m trying to make is that knowing your priorities and actually prioritising your priorities are 2 different things.

Prioritising priorities is much more difficult than knowing priorities.

Start prioritising priorities only then will the good results start prioritising you.

-ChoubeySahab

Patriarchy (micro blog)

What is patriarchy?

The male domination in respect to power in a household is patriarchy. Have you ever noticed that the final decision about any issue concerning the family is taken by your father.

Why is this so?

This is because of patriarchy. The belief that men are more powerful and sensible than women stems from the idea of patriarchy.

But what’s wrong with patriarchy?

It gives unjust importance to one gender simply based on societal norms. It goes against the fabric of equality of genders. Hence, it is something that needs to be questioned and taken down.

How do we take it down?

By making men realize that they are not entitled to this undue power in a family just based on the fact that they are male. It’s time we realise that women are competing with men in every field. This means that they deserve a fair say in all family decisions and need to be respected at par with their male counterparts.

Patriarchy is against equalism and whatever infringes with equality deserves to be fought against and taken down.

Male dominance needs to end.

-ChoubeySahab

How to write? (Micro blog)

Many of my readers on Instagram and LinkedIn have been wanting me to unravel the mystery behind writing 1 blog everyday. They ask me for tips to write better, while others want help with overcoming the writer’s block.

A writer’s block is a situation when a writer is not able to write because of one of the many reasons-lack of good topic, no flow of thought, getting distracted, not finding the right words.

If you have also faced similar situation then worry not. It is absolutely normal to face these issues while trying to write. But the secret to being a good writer is how you overcome each of these issues. Like there was a time when I struggled to find good topics to write on, so I open sourced topics from my instagram followers.

Then once I faced the problem of getting distracted midway while writing a blog. I fixed this by writing the blog as soon as I wake up in the morning, to utilise the calm state of mind. This resulted in some of the best blogs I’ve written till date.

The last problem and the biggest of all is maintaining consistency. Writing 1 blog everyday for around 120+ days now needs some serious motivation. There were days when I was in a really bad mood but still had to write. There were days when it was so hectic that finding time to write was difficult.

Now when I look back to see what was my motivation that didn’t let me skip a day, it is the streak itself. Imagine you have scored 120 runs in a match, would you like to get out. Hell no. You know the amount of sweat you’ve put in to reach 120 and getting out here would mean starting from 0 again. That would be ridiculous.

Having written a blog for 120+ days now is enough motivation for me to not skip a single day. Because if I do then this streak will be broken and I’ll have to start from 0 again.

So if you want to take up this habit of writing everyday or just any habit for that matter. Try to build a streak. A streak you can’t even think of breaking.

-ChoubeySahab

Breathe!! (micro blog)

This is something that most of us forget doing while chasing our goals. We let the expectations of others from us take over us and we keep thinking about it 24*7.

Like how will I do well in the next exams and how do I not let my parents down? These questions can constantly haunt you. This happens to me too. At times I wonder if I’m living upto the faith my parents have in me or not. The answer to this question scares me everytime because I know that whatever I’m doing can be done better.

You need to accept the fact however good you may be, there will always be that better Sharma ji ka ladka/ladki that your parents will compare you with. Once you accept this fact then you are in a much calmer state of mind to deal with life. You feel a lot less pressure.

What this essentially means is that you should not forget to breathe, however high the expectations of people from you may be. Just take a deep breath in and don’t release it back until you realise that you doing just good enough and there’s no need to worry.

I agree there is a fierce race that we all are part of but still your ability to breathe effectively while running is what will determine how to finish the race.

-ChoubeySahab

Starting from 0

Has it ever happened to you that you had to start something all over again from 0? Suppose you were making a project then half way down you realise that many others have chosen the same topic, so you decide to start from 0 again.

This is really difficult to do. Dumping your own hardwork ain’t easy. It takes some serious guts to do this.

But this has amazing benefits. When you start from 0 again, you are better equipped for this thing now as you had built something similar earlier.

This helps you know what mistakes to avoid and better what you earlier did. When you start from 0, the thing almost always turns out to be better.

But going back to 0 ain’t easy. Many don’t even know when it’s time to go to 0 again. Most people consider this stage as failure while all they needed to do was go back to 0 and start all over again.

People are scared of putting the same kinda hardwork again and hence giving up seems much easier.

This is why it is said that you need to be motivated by a purpose. Being in pursuit of a purpose (say fixing education) can keep you from giving up. It makes you try multiple approaches until one actually clicks. It gives you the courage to start from 0 again and again and again.

Through this I want you to think about your purpose in life.

What’s that thing that you’ll do even if you fail a million times? For me it’s fixing education. What about you?

-ChoubeySahab

You don’t matter (micro blog)

Do you ever realize how insignificant you are? You are just a tiny speck of dust on a tiny dot which is revolving around another yellow dot. The universe is so vast that we don’t even know if people of another planet recognize us.

Humans have existed for about 200,000 years while the universe is appx 3.8 billion years old. We might go extinct in the next 100,000 years. None of what we do in our 70-80 years here actually matters to this mighty universe.

But still we have our problems. We are scared to do a lot of things because we think of what would people think if you did that. We keep following what everyone else is doing without taking a moment to realize what we actually want to do. We keep taking the safe path for everything. We keep trying to avoid failure.

Why are we doing all this? Noone would care 100 years from now for what you did with your time here on this blue dot. Noone would care for what exams you cleared. No nothing at all.

So why don’t we just live our time here according to what our heart says? I mean who would care even if we terribly fail, afterall we will all die. But what if your risk pays off, and you succeed. You’ll live more happily with more freedom from what the world thinks of you.

You really don’t matter. So go out and express yourself. Make yourself felt. Feel alive. Don’t be scaring of taking risks. Break unjust societal norms. Speak out for the issues that bother you.

You have just one life. Don’t attach too much importance to yourself. Just focus on living a life that you love. If not logically then crazily but live a life less ordinary. A life you remember even in your afterlife.

-ChoubeySahab

B.Tech and a willingness to be exploited

These are the only 2 things that you need to get an engineering job in India. There used to be a time when one proudly told someone that he/she is an engineer but today the situation is different. Today if you tell someone that you are an engineer then the most probable reply would be “Well so am I”.

Indian parents’ obsession with engineering doesn’t seem to end and neither does the supply of engineers. Engineers who were forced into becoming engineers and not the ones who have a knack for problem solving. The problem is so intense that most engineers don’t even know what “engineering” means as a word. It means problem solving.

The over supply of engineers has lead to mass exploitation of engineers. They are paid much less when compared to international engineering standards. They are made to work overtime. Insecurity of job is a constant threat.

It’s basic economics, more the supply, less the value.

So this essentially means that to be an engineer in India, you need to be willing to be exploited else someone else will replace you.

I really wish to go out to all those parents forcing their children into coaching institutes to become an engineer someday.

Please take my word for this, it is not worth it. Your child deserves much better than a laptop screen sitting on their laps all day long.

When I say all day long, I actually mean it.

Even being a street vendor is less exploitative and more rewarding than being an engineer.

The choice is yours and it’s between a life and a laptop.

Choose wisely!

-ChoubeySahab

Is it ethically wrong to kill mosquito?

Most of us kill mosquito, we start clapping as soon as we hear buzzing sound. We don’t really think before killing but is it ethically right to kill mosquito?

Before we give a yes/no answer to this. Let’s first look at some facts. Mosquitos kill more people in a year than lion, tiger and shark combined. This is because mosquitos are very efficient at carrying germs and infection. Malaria, dengue and so many deadly diseases are caused because of mosquito bite.

It is not just humans who get killed but even animals. Mosquitos are equally deadly for dogs, cats, cows and many more animals.

Killing mosquito might feel bad to us humans but mosquitos don’t have any feelings. They just go on spreading infections and killing people.

Another important fact to considered here is that mosquitos have a short life span. If you don’t kill them, then the lizard in your house will.

We live with mosquitos without realising that this species has killed more people than any other species.

So next time when you get a chance, kill the mosquito before it kills you.

-ChoubeySahab

Paper vs digital (micro blog)

In the age when everything is going digital, how is paper still managing to give digital a tough fight?

Paper has a feel, you get to feel the texture of paper. Paper doesn’t throw bright harmful rays into your eyes. You can smell paper. There are books which come with a specific smell. This can’t be done with digital.

One argument for using digital is that there are no trees cut for digital. It is a popular misconception that a lot of trees are cut to make paper. But very few people know that paper can be made out of a specific kind of trees and these trees are grown with the purpose of making paper. These trees have a property that makes them die if not cut on time.

So cutting trees for making paper is not that big a deal. Also, paper is one such substance which is cheap to recycle and re-use.

Digital sure is taking over the world. But paper is paper and digital ain’t replacing paper anytime soon .

This is the primary reason why I still haven’t bought a Kindle. I want that feel and sound of turning a page and noone does it better than paper.

-ChoubeySahab